Prologue:
I wonder how I am supposed to tell you of this. I wonder why I should tell you of this. I’m not proud of it. I never wanted something like this to happen.
I suppose it couldn’t really be classified as a bad thing. Actually, most would consider it an honor of the highest order, or think it was a dream come true. Not I. It was never something I wanted. All I ever wanted, all I ever needed, was to be free. Free to live my life, without boundaries, the invisible chains that bind those who allow them. I suppose I am “free” now. I have no real rules to follow, merely customs. Though, the monarch of a country is never truly free. And I am in the last place I ever wanted to be again: indoors.
You see, for the first fifteen years of my life, I was indoors, all the time. Trapped in a house by my mother, and I never questioned why, because there was nothing else I knew. Four walls, no windows, keeping me away from the door. I never knew what was out there, never thought about it, never questioned it.
Until he came.
He came when I was twelve, and seemed fairly ordinary. Another person visiting my brother, a boy that was all elbows and hands and feet. Many people visited my brother, but none of them talked to me. They all took one look at me and walked away, never to return. All my tutors, all of the people that visited my mother, my brother, everyone.
I wasn’t hideous, oh no. it was my hair and eyes that scared them. I looked nothing like my mother, with her rich black hair and chocolaty brown eyes, or like my brother, so much like my mother. My hair was thick, and a light shade of the purest silver, as though it were hammered out of the mineral. My eyes, in contrast, were bright pieces of amethyst, shining bright purple even in the darkest light. I was an oddity, an outcast, and people avoided me for it.
But not him. Not this boy. He was the one that first spoke to me. He asked my name, what type of things I liked to do, and about my friends.
I told him the truth: I didn’t have any. He asked my why I didn’t. I told him I had never been outside. He had stared, shocked. I explained that my mother kept me inside. Finally, he found his voice. “Why?” he had asked. “Why?” he kept saying that as he left, leaving me behind without so much as a good-bye. But I never forgot him. He made me think.
Three years later, on that same day that I met him, I left the house for the first time. I intended never to return. Soon after I left, I was intercepted by an odd pair, both male, and one of whom wanted to sell me. The other, after seeing my hair and eyes, wanted to take me to the King’s Court.
His name was Theman.
He was tall, with brown hair framing a handsomely sculpted face. He was very charming, and gentlemanly, and wore a neat blue suit. He had the sort of smile that warmed you to the tips of your toes because it felt like it was just for you, even though you may have been positive it wasn’t. And whenever he smiled, his eyes would sparkle. Emerald eyes. I would never forget those eyes, or the man they belonged to. I can see them even now, still twinkling after all these years.
In the end, I was taken to the capital, for my silver hair and purple eyes were apparently the mark of the Royal Family of Thalia, the country I had lived just outside the border of my whole life. Through a strange twist of Fate, I was identified as the King’s own daughter, mothered by an enemy of the state. He asked me where she was. I refused to tell him. He told me that my mother had tried to kill him, and must be punished. I still refused to tell him. As punishment for my mother’s actions, I was banished from Thalia.
Theman spoke out against it.
He had been that boy I had met three years previous. The one that inspired me to leave that oppressive house. And he had been searching for me ever since, though, as he had been training to be a knight, he couldn’t venture very far.
Despite this, I accepted the punishment anyway. I was escorted to the border of Thalia, but not before I promised Theman we would meet again. And I was finally free.
You will probably stop reading now. She is free; there is nothing more to hear, you might think. You would be wrong. What I have told you is merely a part of my story. Merely an inch. The inch that set me on the path of a long and difficult journey. The inch that would cause me to lose the only two things that mean more to me than my own life. The inch that, when measured, would irrevocably change my life forever.
I now feel I know why this must be written. My story must be told. I’ll not be a lost memory, fading away in the minds of those that knew me. The pain from reliving these moments will be a welcome relief. I am tired of feeling only apathy, of not caring for anything. Perhaps, after this is written I could smile again. Laugh again. Bring myself to love again. Perhaps…
